McLaren MP4-12c & Aston Martin V8 Vantage Supercars

Literally 2 of my favourite British Supercars. Here’s shots from another fantastic afternoon with Drive Southwest for a private hire with a couple of guys and a couple of stunning supercars. I was joined on this outing by fellow petrol head, Rich Hill who loves supercars, well, most cars, as much as I do!

Rich and I met up with Mark, the owner of Drive Southwest, Alysia and Gerry at the company’s garage in Frome. Mark & Gerry were to drive the Aston Martin and McLaren with Alysia following behind in the support car to meet the clients at the restaurant, Salt & Malt at Chew Valley lake. Rich and I took the opportunity to jump in the Aston and McLaren once we had loaded up the cars with the camera kit. Once we had met the guys at Salt & Malt and got aquanited, they were introduced to each car and shown the features of each of them. They then fired them up and we got on the road!

The McLaren MP4-12C (mouth full much?) is more commonly known as the 12C and was designed and manufactured by McLaren Automotive. It’s a stunning supercar, seriously there isn’t a bad angle on it. I (drooled) stared at it for 6 hours and couldn’t find one outside or inside. With it’s outrageous gullwing door design and it’s belly scraping along the floor to terrorise ants, it was the first production car totally designed and built by McLaren since the McLaren F1. It’s undoubtedly the quickest of the 2 supercars here and features a carbon fibre composite chassis powered by a mid-mounted McLaren M838T 3.8-litre V8, twin-turbo engine cranking out around 592 hp and 443 lb/ft of torque with a kerb weight of 1,434 kg (3,161 lb)….if you don’t know…then that’s pretty darn quick! Click here to Hire it and experience it for yourself.

What the V8 Vantage loses in turbos, speed and weight it makes up for in style, audacity and raw V8 goodness plus you can pretend you’re James Bond (don’t be silly, we all know that the only Vantage he drove was the 1987 Vantage Volante in The Living Daylights of the same year *rollyeyes emoji*).

All Lada cutting lasers and other Bond fantasies aside, it’s built by British manufacturer Aston Martin and THIS 2006 model Vantage is a much leaner, more agile car compared to it’s predecessors. With a bonded aluminium structure and powered by a 4.3l quad-cam, 32-valve, V8 it kicks out around 380 bhp @ 7300 rpm and 308 lb-ft @ 5000 rpm and when the GO pedal is squeezed and you hit 4k on the rev counter….then the party really starts and everyone around you knows about it. Hooligan! That being said it’s perfectly capable of being driven casually and even being kept below 4k…but where’s the fun in that? Go on, do yourself a favour and go and hire it! CLICK ME!

Mark had planned a decent roadtrip that allowed a varity of driving conditions to be experienced in these two supercars – twisty A-Roads, Dual Carriageways, town and village driving and Motorway cruising. After leaving Salt & Malt in the Chew Valley we headed south to drive down through Cheddar Gorge where we stopped for some photos. After this we crossed across to The Windmill Inn, in Portishead overlooking the Severn Esturary. Next on the route was the magnificent Thornbury Castle and finally we dropped the clients off at the festival they were a part of at Ashton Court in Bristol. Rich and I then had the opportunity to take the Aston back to Drive Southwest’s garage in Frome. Enjoy the photos!

Are you or anyone you know having an event that needs covering or do you know anyone who has a car they’d love magazine feature style photographs of? Please feel free to refer us. That includes any friends or family you know getting married anywhere in the world! We love to travel!